The need to coil or bundle wires, cables, flexible tubes, ropes and hoses exists throughout industry and home life. Devices such as extension cords, cables, air hoses, ropes, and other long, flexible articles (hereinafter referred to generically as “cables”) present a storage problem, where coiled cables often become tangled due to the lack of constraints to keep the cables properly coiled. The traditional storage method is to wrap the cables around a person's elbow and between the thumb and forefinger. Once the cable has been coiled, some form of strap is placed around the coil and fastened to prevent the coil from tangling or uncoiling.
An early device devised to act as a strap consisted of a simple piece of bendable wire which could be twisted to retain the wire around the bundled cables. Twist ties, as these wire retainers are frequently called, provide an economical tie, but can not be easily attached single-handedly, and furthermore have limited lifespans due to fatiguing of the wire. Furthermore, untwisting the tie can often be difficult.
Plastic variations of the twist tie have been developed which rely on toothed engagement fasteners to prevent the tie from coming lose. One variation of a plastic tie uses a serrated end which is passed through a slot in the opposite end of the tie as a means of adjustably fastening the tie. Although this construction is economical, it like-wise does not lend itself to single-handed installation. Furthermore, once fastened, the serrated edges can be difficult to withdraw from the slot, making it difficult to remove the tie, and thus release bundled cables.
Later developments, such as the tying means shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,791 to Nakamura, incorporate one or more teeth on the end or ends of the strap to lock the strap in the closed position. These straps also utilize a normally open position to ease the difficulties of placing cables into the cavity of the device, allowing easier single handed operation. Once the device has been wrapped around the object or objects to be constrained, the ends of the strap are forced into engagement, locking the tie into place. Nakamura provides a pair of tabs to release the engagement teeth, allowing the band once fastened to be unlocked. Once unlocked, however, the mouth of the band is open, allowing bundled cables or wires to fall from the device. Furthermore, grouping the cables one at a time into the Nakamura device is difficult, since there is no method provided for holding the device while individual cables are placed into the device.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a cable management device which is easily held to allow cables to be placed into the device one at a time, while reducing the likelihood of cables already placed into the device from falling out of the device. It is also an object of the present invention to provide a cable management device having a controllable mouth gap to ease the difficulties of placing cables or wires into the device. Finally, it is also an object of the present invention to provide a cable management device that can be readily released and reused.